A common misstep is thinking of an intranet homepage like a website homepage: static explanations with some visuals. Instead, an intranet homepage is more like a collection of content feeds to help employees keep up-to-date on the latest information at a glance. It should also help them feel connected to the company, and enable them to do their job more efficiently.

Title

All Pages have a Title, Description, and Icon, but in the case of the Home Site's Home Page, these get high exposure. However, they can easily be adjusted or removed as desired.

Each of these items is shown on the Home Page in the first image below, with the corresponding fields shown on the Page Card in the second image, which is where you can edit them. Note that none of these fields has to display for users. To modify the fields, click the Admin icon in the Toolbar > Assets tab > Home Site card > Pages button > Home Page (it has a flag as shown below) to access the settings for the Home Page of your Site. Then either:

click on a field within the card to edit (click the blue Save icon to finalize); or

click one of the checkboxes on the right to access a setting, deselect the box if you don't want it to display, and the blue Save icon to finalize

Go to your Home Page to see your changes in action.

Layout Basics

As with all sites, there is a left column in place which includes navigation, and this left column will be present on all Apps and pages associated with the Home site. In this case, the navigation is initially called Quick Links and is intended to provide a shortcut to often-used pages or tools. You can retitle this navigation (e.g. Shortcuts or Key Tools), lengthen or shorten it, or eliminate it. Keep in mind that since this is a built-in feature if you delete it you won't be able to put it back on the Home Page.

There is also a right column which is optional. Using the right column will allow you to have a narrower column of information (as opposed to having widgets share equal space), but everything within that column will be forced to that width, so you won't have the same extent of flexibility of layout that you'd get with rows of widgets.

Latest News

Most organizations include a What's New Feed widget on their Home Page (if you're new to Intranet Connections, on your demo site a What's New widget was included on the Home Page.) This widget displays a list of advertised items from Applications across the site, and it's a great way to show recently published information at a glance. Learn more about the What's New Feed widget, and about Advertising for Apps.

You'll likely want to give this widget a prominent location so staff can see the content without having to scroll down after they land on the Home Page. Learn more about working with widgets. You can retitle the widget (1) so it's a good fit with your organization; common options are What's New, or Latest News. You can also control the number of items which show in the widge (2) and customize in various other ways to optimize it for your organization.

Optimizing the What's New Feed for your organization will depend on the type and volume of content you anticipate being advertised. For example, if there many training courses offered, it may make sense to add an Application Feed widget for Training, so staff know to look there for courses and the What's New doesn't get overwhelmed with course dates.

Application Feeds

As mentioned in the previous section, an Application Feed pulls content directly from a specific App into your Home Page - anything from Documents to Buy & Sell. This feed is a bit different from the What's New feed, as items don't have to be advertised to appear in this widget, they just have to be published (i.e. saved). You can get very specific about the type of folder or author content which displays, depending on the App. Learn more about the App Feed widget.

Similarly, the Blog Feed widget will display the latest posts from an intranet blog. The set up is slightly different from an App Feed, but it peforms the same function of showing the latest from the blog, directly on your Home Page.

Rotating Images

Many organizations like to include large-format images on their homepage for visual interest, using the Image Slider Widget. You can control the number of images, how long they display for, how long to transition between images, internal or external links for each image, and the size of the images.

Of course, "image" can be a photo or a graphic with words as shown below. Get creative and use the image slider to promote company campaigns or events, highlight a new feature - or anything else you envision.

Other Content on Your Home Page

There are endless variations for content you can include on your Home Page, and much of it depends on the needs and culture of your organization. However, some of the more popular widget options include: